


goodbye.

by brokennbutterfly



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Kayfabe Compliant, M/M, One Shot, also i use 'fuck' a lot?, i had too many feels and i HAD to write something, prepare yourselves guys, set before extreme rules 2016 aka seth's return from injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 15:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11255376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokennbutterfly/pseuds/brokennbutterfly
Summary: It’s not until the sound of the ring bell echoing throughout the living room of his house that he wakes up. Seth shoots himself up, ready to fight like he’s got the healthiest knee in the fucking world. He checked on the clock hanging on the wall, fucking11 pm. Seth hesitates, as he stares at his front door. Who the fuck was behind it?





	goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bulletwithbutterflywings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulletwithbutterflywings/gifts).



> This is the first time I post my work and I'm quite nervous about this hahaha. Please, PLEASE note that I'm not a native speaker so there will be some mispellings and/or mistakes. I'm slowly learning everyday, so, yeah haha. Enjoy the story and leave kudos and some comments if you'd like!
> 
> Edit (July 4th): I proofread and edited a few things here and there, but nothing major. that's all.

Ten days.

Extreme Rules was ten days away.

That was exactly the number of days left before his return.

Seth Rollins knows he isn’t ready. His knee hasn’t fully recovered and come Extreme Rules in ten days, it won't recover completely. He still needs to use his crutches if he's got to move around the house and it was like a constant reminder that he isn’t ready, that he shouldn’t do this.

Today was a tough day. He woke up very early in the morning to rehab and he went on for hours until afternoon, only having a forty-five minute lunch break to eat something from Nutritions Solutions and rest a bit. His trainer had been more demanding during the past few days, including today, probably because Seth’d informed him that he wants to return at Extreme Rules next Sunday. Granted, the trainer wasn’t happy with his decision, but there wasn't anything Seth could do about it.

He’d wanted to sit and watch SmackDown at night, at least a part of it, but he didn’t have the energy to keep himself awake and as soon as he laid down on the couch, he slowly started falling asleep.

It’s not until the sound of the ring bell echoing throughout the living room of his house that he wakes up. Seth shoots himself up, ready to fight like he’s got the healthiest knee in the fucking world. He checked on the clock hanging on the wall, fucking _11 pm_. Seth hesitates, as he stares at his front door. Who the fuck was behind it?

The Authority hadn’t shown their faces since he got injured. It was clear that they didn’t give a fuck about Seth if he couldn't put on some work on the ring. They’d thrown him to a side like the piece of crap everyone knew he was or, at least, that’s what it looks like for now. It could also be Roman the one ringing the bell, but he would’ve called him if he came to visit, that good Samoan.

There was no way that the person standing behind the door could be someone that wanted to see him or Seth wanted to see.

The bell rings again and this time is accompained with rough knocks.

Seth opens his eyes at the knocking pattern, as he slowly stands up. It's scary that he _remembers_ the pattern—a hard knock, a brief pause, three quick softer knocks, and finally followed by sporadic, erratic knocks.

It was impossible.

No, it couldn’t be _him_. Oh, no, he wanted to kill him, didn’t he? He came to reclaim his life before Seth’s even able to reclaim the fucking title he's been preparing for so long. He was going to die now, in his house in Davenport, like the pathetic sell-out he’s always been, at the hands of none other than Dean fucking Ambrose.

“ _Seth, I know you’re there,_ ” Seth’s breath hitches as he hears Dean’s raspy voice from the other side of the front door. He sounded so… defeated. Why? What was he even doing here? Didn’t he come to kill him? Why the fuck was he sounding like he was going to a church to ask for forgiveness for his sins? _Isn’t that what I should do?_ “ _I just… I just arrived and—could you just open the door, please? I promise I won’t do anything,_ ” his voice was the softest he’s ever heard in quite a long time.

Well, truth be told, Seth knows everything about making promises and he wouldn’t put past Dean that he also knew a thing or two.

He hesitates, a thousand of times indeed, a lot of possible murderous scenarios flashing through his mind as he thoughtfully decided whether to answer the door or not; but soon he finds himself dragging his bad knee to the front door and his hand’s suddenly on the doorknob. He’s screwed, anyways, he thinks, so he opens the door.

It’s when Seth notices that Dean looks defeated for real, that it wasn’t just his voice giving away hints.

“Hi,” it’s all he can manage to let out, what a stupid idiot. “Wh—what are you d—doing here?”

Jesus, why is his voice trembling? It’s Dean Ambrose. He’s dealt with him before, and he has been in worse situations than this particular one.

Dean raises his chin, stares at him wistfully and doesn’t say a word. Not bad for someone who spoke first, technically speaking.

Seth can’t deal with this. He can’t deal with _him_.

“All right, Ambrose,” he says, sounding more cockily now, and there he goes back pretending he’s the same son of a bitch that walked out on him in the first place. “If you’ve got nothing else to say, this is it,” he starts closing the door when Dean’s hand stops him.

All right, he may or may not speak, but Dean’s got something to do here, Seth observes.

“Can I come in?” not a “hi” or “hey, you sell-out”, or “hey…” followed by at least one of the plethora of names that Dean had called him. Just that. “Can I come in, _Seth_?”

Not Rollins. 

He said his name twice. Two times.

_Not Rollins._

Seth is speechless, for that and for a lot of things more that he can’t put into words right now, so he just moves to a side and lets him in. Dean walks inside his house, in the unstable way he’s so known for.

Dean had been here before, so he knows very well how his house looks like. He’d visited his house more than just once. A lot of times, if Seth’s being honest with himself. For sure, he doesn’t regret any of those times, but he wonders what could’ve been of them if Dean hadn’t showed up _that day_ , in the middle of a weather, soaked in water because of the rain, in first place. What could’ve been of their relationship if Dean just hadn’t—

Yeah, let's just not do that right now. Not the time.

“What do you want to talk about that is so important for you, Ambrose?” he asks, keeping his voice straight and confident, hiding how much he wants to know why did Dean decide to waste his time here of all places.

Dean chuckles as he turns around to face him, “Ambrose?” he questions, before wiping his smile off in matters of seconds. He’s serious now but it’s not something Seth hasn’t seen before. He doesn’t know why, but Seth felt like he’s just kicked a puppy. “That's what we're back to now, Seth? ' _Ambrose_ '? You, what, can’t say my name anymore?" he laughs, mitherlessly. "C’mon, Seth, you’re better than that.”

Seth’s suddenly so confused. But understand his, uh, _concern_ \--but, he's got to understand _his_ as well

“Why are you here?” it’s very plausible, now that he thinks about it, that he can’t say Dean’s name.

Seth studies Dean as he watches him back, observing his deplorable state—probably because he had a match, since SmackDown was on tonight. Seth doesn't want to know where the event took place. His eyes are still on his when Dean starts walking up to him, painfully slowly, while Seth instintively steps back.

Seth swears he’s not afraid of Dean Ambrose in this very moment. It’s just that he can’t deal with this now. He can’t handle Dean. Everything is so intense with him and Seth doesn't carry the energy to deal with him or with the situation. He simply can't..

He just can’t.

Seth tries to walk away from Dean until his back hits the front door, for when Dean stops. Two steps away from him.

Oh, fuck.

“How’s your knee?” the question comes out of his mouth very softly, something that Seth can’t say he’s used to. Not with Dean.

He’s looking at his pair of sad blue eyes when he answers, “it’s getting better.”

That’s a lie, because it fucking hurts—must be humidity outside—and Seth has no idea if he’ll be a hundred percent ready when Extreme Rules comes. There's a high chance that he’ll have to lie and bribe the trainers to clear him to wrestle, so that he can fulfill his goal for Sunday. He'll probably fuck his knee up one more time, being that luck isn't on his side. But if it _all_ comes down to him winning or getting a step closer to the title, then so be it.

Dean simply nods at that, thankfully unaware of what’s going through Seth’s mind.

There’s a silence afterwards and they don’t break eye contact for one second. Then, Dean steps closer to him until they’re nose to nose.

His baby blue eyes are like bullets that kill Seth every second that passes. He figures he can’t deal with this, not now, not ever; not when years had passed and they had left it all behind. And he hates it, because for all it’s worth, Seth doesn’t want it to be like that with Dean.

“What do you want, _Dean_?” Seth asks, his voice sounding like a scared child, and he doesn’t miss Dean tensing up when he hears Seth saying his name.

Dean struggles as he swallows a lump. “Answers,” he replies decisively.

Oh, no.

Fuck, _no_.

Seth looks down so quickly and so pathetically that it’s disappointing in a way for being Seth _freakin’_ Rollins. “I can’t do this,” he says, and he didn't mean to say that out loud, and now it looks like _he’s_ defeated. “I can’t do this right now, Dean. I—I just… _can’t_.”

He can’t, for the life of him, manage to look back to those eyes again. Not if they’re going to kill him every time.

“Look at me, Seth,” Dean whispers and it must’ve been the softest demand that Seth’s received from Dean in almost two years, so he decides to raise his head, to look at him and to the hell with it. He had never thought he’d see Dean so serious, and sad, not when they’re not in the middle of the ring yelling stuffs at each other.

Thing that, at least when it comes from him, aren’t meant to mean something at all.

Dean gets impossibly closer to Seth’s face, leaning his hands on either side of Seth’s head and on the door, and Seth digs the door deeper and deeper with his back.

“I want to know why you really did it,” he says, still softly.

Seth’s heart starts beating so fast and so strong, it feels like it’s hammering his ribs and it hurts more than just physically. “Why?” Seth asks him back, his voice trembling a lot.

For fuck’s sake.

Dean licks his lips quickly before he says, “because I need to move on.”

Seth's heart sinks immediately. 

Move on? _What?_ What does he really mean with that?

Seth can’t believe his ears. His eyes automatically start filling with tears, each of Dean’s words feeling like arrows through his body. He hasn’t cried in years. He hasn’t cried over Dean Ambrose in years and now—now, he’s here, asking for answers to fucking move on, and—

Fuck.

He feels his lower lip tremble and Seth decides he just can’t do this anymore, that he can’t look at Dean in the eyes and blurt it all out, so he pushes Dean away and walks past him, bitting his lip so that it can just _stop_ trembling. 

“I think you should leave,” he tells him, almost _begs_ him to do.

Dean punches the door so hard that it makes Seth jump in his place.

“I just want to know why you did it, Seth!” he screams, and he’s probably aiming to punch the walls and the door and any other punchable object; and all Seth wants to do is to turn around, and hug him and draw circles on his back with his fingertips to calm him down. It worked, in the past. But he can’t. He can’t do this now. “There’s gotta be a reason! There’s gotta be a reason why you decided to throw everything away—what we had, Seth, it was good. It was good.”

He knows.

He fucking _knows_.

Seth covers his face with his hands. “Just shut up, Dean, and leave.”

“I can’t,” Dean whispers and it takes Seth a moment to realize he’s standing right behind him.

Seth ultimately decides to face it. To face him. He can only hope that Dean leaves in the next minute, because Seth's sure he can't handle this anymore. He lowers his arms as he turns around, no more hiding behind his hands.

He'd seen Dean’s heartbreaking face too many times by now and it had affected him in ways he could never describe, and this particular situation was of no exception. And he’d laughed at that, as much as he’d cried and hated himself for it. He’d laughed at Dean in front of the Authority. He’d sobbed like a five-year-old when he was alone in his hotel room, nobody around to tell him everything was going to be ok.

There’s no exact reason why he aligned himself with the Authority, why he’d abandoned his brothers to join them. Why he'd abandoned Dean, most of all. At least, none other than the fact that he was an idiot that was seduced by promises of glory, fame and the title, and fuck, didn't he love it.

And he’d had time to think about it, now that he’d been injured and unable to move from his bed for a great amount of time. The Authority didn’t break their promises and gave him exactly what they said he’d receive. There’s no doubt in that. But, at what price? For what? To end up injured and forced to relinquish the damn title he’d worked his ass off for? The damn title that he’d abandoned his brothers for. The damn title that he’d broke Dean’s heart for, so many times it's actually unforgivable.

There’s no exact reason why he was stupid enough to think everything was going to be fine at the top, but he does want to let Dean know one thing.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Seth says after a moment. Dean’s too fucking close, almost nose-to-nose once again. He watches Dean press his lips, before he follows. “It’s mine. It’s all on me. You had nothing to do with it.”

“What makes you think I blamed myself for it?”

He’s got a point. But Seth has also got one.

Seth gulps before replying. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t blame yourself for it.”

It's a hunch, but then Dean reacts to that.

Dean chuckles humorlessly, “so, what, you decided to be an idiot for one day and stab me in the back like the coward you are?” it’s not a question nor it looks like a statement, and his voice is now raspy and rough. Seth doesn't know what to reply. He only wants to kick him out of his house now, before everything gets worse. “I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it for one second.”

Dean didn’t deny that he did blame himself for Seth leaving and it feels like a punch in the face in the moment that Seth realizes he was right.

“Then, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Dean looks at Seth for a second before kicking his coffee table hard enough to turn it around and break the glass. Seth can’t say he’ll miss that coffee table, though.

“Stop lying to me, Seth!” he yells, as he paces around the living room, desperate to hit something else. Seth’s got nothing else to do but stand there, he knows that everything will get worse if he just do or say something. “I just want you to stop lying to me! Stop this bullshit and tell me!”

“I lied to you too many times to count, Dean, but, right now, I’m not lying,” he states, his voice soft and gentle, looking right into Dean’s eyes.

Dean seems to have noticed he wasn’t lying in that moment, because he flops down on the floor as if he’s just been defeated in a match.

It’s not a nice picture if you ask Seth.

“You should leav—

“Don’t,” Dean cuts off. “You can’t do this. You can’t stand there like an idiot and tell me that you were stupid and decided to hit me in the back with a fucking steel chair—

“I was promised glory, fame and the title, Dean!” Seth blurts out. He couldn’t hold it in himself anymore. “It’s all I ever wanted! You know it, Dean! You know it has always been my dream! I couldn’t just throw it all away just because you didn’t want us to stop being brothers and fly solo! I _had_ to do something. They told me they’d help me to get the title, but I had to leave you two. And you know how much I wanted it, Dean! You _know_!”

Dean doesn’t move from the spot he’s sitting on, as he looks at him with sad eyes. “I know, Seth,” he says, his voice going back to the softness of earlier. “But did you _know_ , though?”

“What?” Seth's caught off guard, and so he frowns.

He watches Dean slowly get on his feet and walk up to him, absolutely exhausted and defeated. 

“Did you know that I would’ve done anything for you?” Seth’s heart sinks again, and takes a turn and starts hammering his ribs again, and Seth can’t help himself but just start crying. “If you’d asked me, like, you wanted the title and all, I would’ve gone with you. I would’ve been by your side.”

“You wouldn—

“All right, yes, I would’ve probably challenged you for the title too,” Dean rolls his eyes and chuckles, and he supposes he’s trying to be a bit funny but Seth gapes and sobs, it's all he seems to know to do at this point. “But, yeah, I wouldn’t have stabbed you in the back or hit you with a chair. I would’ve gone with you ‘till the end of the world, Seth. It would’ve been us against the fucking _world_.”

A gigantic sob attacks him in that moment, and suddenly, his cheeks are filled with tears running down. 

It’s when Dean cups his cheek with both of his hands only to wipe his tears away with his fingertips, ever so gently, that Seth realizes how stupid he’s been. How stupid he’s been to devaluate Dean’s loyalty. How stupid he’s been to devaluate what friendship and brotherhood mean to Dean. How stupid he’s been to think everything would be fine after he turned on them—on him. How stupid he’s been to think that what they had was only a friendship and a brotherhood.

How stupid he’s been.

“Dean, I—,” another strong sob stops him from speaking; of course, he hasn’t cried in fucking years over him and now everything is down in the open. He can’t look at him anymore, he just can’t. Not when everything is crap and he can’t do anything to fix it. He lowers his head and leans it on Dean’s shoulder, desperately asking for some help in silence as his fingers digs Dean's t-shirt. “I’m sorry,” it comes out pathetic and helpless, and it’s too late now, but Dean wraps him with his arms and Seth, for a second, feels hope.

Minutes pass, but they feel like an eternity. It feels like an eternity that isn’t enough for Seth when Dean lets him go and tries to push him away; Seth can’t do that, so he just stays on his shoulder, over the wet area of his t-shirt, silently asking him to hug him back, to hold him, to tell him how stupid he’s been.

“Seth, look at me,” Dean demands softly, placing his lips on his temple for a brief moment.

Seth _loves_ it when he does that.

“No, I—I can’t, don’t—

“Seth, please,” he asks again and this time, it’s out of his control because it’s Dean who pushes himself away. 

Seth must look horrible, having been crying for the past five minutes on his shoulder, and still crying and sobbing and desperately clinging for a hug. But Dean’s look is the sweetest anyway, as he raises his hands to place them on either side of Seth’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” is all he can blurt out in that moment. “I kno—I know it’s too late. I—I’m sorry for that too. B—but, I’m sorry for everything.”

“I’m sorry too, Seth,” Dean says, sucking his lips quickly. “I’m sorry too.”

Immediately after he finishes talking, Dean crashes his lips on Seth’s. He hadn’t seen it coming, so it takes him a while to accustomate—he’s never kissed a man before, let alone Dean. But Seth slowly melts into the kiss, opening his mouth to welcome Dean’s tongue.

It’s passionate and they’re both very hungry; Seth can feel Dean’s hands everywhere, pulling him impossibly closer, kissing him as if it was their last chance to do it.

“I’m sorry,” Dean mutters into his lips as he pushes himself away and leaves the house, only making Seth sob stronger and cry more.

Seth falls lifelessly to the floor and drags himself to lean on the couch. He puts his legs up and hugs them tightly, as tightly as he can with his bad knee and all, muffling his sobs in between his knees.

It's heavy and it hurts all over his body, heart and mind, but he can’t help but think about the times he’s been an idiot to Dean, breaking his heart all over again and again, and again—when in fact, if he hadn’t done that, he could’ve gotten this. Dean’s hands everywhere. Dean’s lips on his, kissing him so softly. Dean.

He could’ve gotten everything. They could’ve had it all. If only— _fuck_ , if only he hadn't been so stupid.

But now, there’s nothing. Dean kissed him, said ‘sorry’ and left. He knows what that means. He knows that can only mean the proper goodbye they’d never had.

It only makes Seth cry even more.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank TheAwkwardFangirl for encouraging me to write fics and then post this one here. I love ya, girl <3
> 
> If you want to, you can check or follow me on tumblr, I'm nerdbrose (I'm mostly crying over ambrollins and over how beautiful Seth and Dean are, so, yeah check it out!)


End file.
